Heretofore, many attempts have been made to inexpensively and automatically or semiautomatically insert elongated or handle sticks axially into wieners and other food products. This operation becomes complicated when the food product is elongated, such as the so-called "foot long hot dog," by impaling a wiener and a half wiener on a single handle stick. Obviously, it is necessary to confine both the wieners and the sticks against lateral displacement during the penetration of said wieners by said sticks. For economy as well as efficiency, the operation should be continual if not continuous and should require minimum manual handling of the wieners and/or sticks. In addition to impaling the wieners on the sticks, it is necessary to feed said wieners and sticks from bins or hoppers into axial alignment with one another as well as with suitable actuating mechanism for forcing each stick toward the wiener or wiener/half wiener into impalement relationship and then discharge the combined stick/wiener for convenient subsequent handling. The prior art shows horizontal and vertical reciprocable plungers or pushers, some of which are manually operated and several of which are cam operated. Food products are positioned in axial alignment, singly or in multiples, with the sticks by horizontal conveyors, hand, gravity and rotary hoppers and slides, while said sticks are so positioned by gravity from vertical and horizontal hoppers through chutes, rotary magazines and manually.
Insofar as known previously, handle sticks and wieners have not been axially aligned and maintained in such relationship during penetration of said wieners by said sticks by means of a rotary magazine or drum having coaxial longitudinal grooves or recesses for receiving and supporting said sticks and wieners while revolving between an inlet and an outlet.
Examples of the closest known prior art located in a search of the prior U.S.A. patents in the Patent and Trademark Office are as follows:
Sattler U.S. Pat. No. 2,152,214 discloses a vertical reciprocable plunger for ejecting sticks downwardly from a vertical rotary magazine so as to penetrate ice cream blocks cut from an underlying moving column.
Pikal U.S. Pat. No. 2,733,439 shows a horizontal stick hopper, a feed mechanism and a stick driving mechanism having a vertical reciprocable hammer for embedding a stick in an apple conveyed therebelow.
Smith U.S. Pat. No. 2,740,117 has a horizontal stick hopper and a horizontal reciprocable plunger for inserting a handle stick into a stationary impalable article.
Raimondi U.S. Pat. No 2,799,857 discloses a horizontal reciprocable ram and pusher pin for inserting a stick into a stationary apple fed by a chute from a horizontal stick hopper.
Blake U.S. Pat. No. 3,213,486 shows mold means to form food products and stick driver means having a horizontal ram and a plunger for pushing sticks from a trough into the food product.
Walters U.S. Pat. No. 3,353,735 discloses an upright reciprocable carriage plate slidably mounted on upright posts and has a horizontal pusher bar for driving stick placed in the notches of a pair of spaced guides into an apple upon rotation of a crank arm and a cam follower by a motor shaft relative to the cam slot of a cam plate mounted on reciprocable carriage plate.
Earling et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,431,695 has separate slides to synchronously feed a lid and a spoon to an assembly head which positions the spoon handle in perpendicular relationship with underside of lid, a reciprocable plunger for driving said spoon handle upwardly through said lid by oscillation of a plunger pivot arm about its pivot. A cam follower and a rotary cam coact to rock the cam follower about its pivot to reciprocate an upright rod downwardly to acuate a cup assembly head and thereby press the cap/lid spoon on a cup.
Zueger U.S. Pat. No. 3,580,456 discloses an inclined bowl having a rotary bottom plate or feeder wheel with peripheral openings for positioning articles to be impaled by sticks in a hopper fed by peripheral grooves in an upright rotary drum to a slot and pushed through another slot into the article.
Lowrance U.S. Pat. No. 3,691,608 has a food holder for a horizontal row of wieners during inserting axially aligned sticks, a hopper for supplying and aligning the sticks and a reciprocable carriage including plungers for feeding and inserting said sticks into chambers of holder.